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AI and Alpha Anywhere: Robin shares practical tips in latest Alpha Software webinar

Can AI help you understand an unfamiliar Alpha Anywhere component, improve your Xbasic code or check the design of a running application?

Start Software’s Robin Bennett has just presented a webinar with Alpha Software showing how to put AI to work on real Alpha Anywhere projects. The recording will be available on YouTube in a few days, so keep an eye out if you missed the live session.


Robin ready to present

Robin started with a look back at his June 2023 webinar, in which he demonstrated creating a universal database generator with ChatGPT and Alpha Anywhere.

Three years ago! Back when Alpha webinars were 50 minutes long and we were experimenting with free AI tools. These days, Start Software’s monthly AI spend runs into four figures — a reflection of how much these tools have become part of our everyday work.

Robin even wondered whether that early demonstration meant he could claim to have invented “vibe coding”. We’ll leave that debate to the historians!

This time, the focus was on practical ways Alpha developers can use AI, including:

  • Planning an application: turning an idea into suggested screens and a database structure, using a travel and memories app for a 30th wedding anniversary as an example.

  • Improving Xbasic: asking AI to review code, suggest optimisations and help investigate errors, including errors supplied as screenshots.

  • Reviewing API code: exploring improvements to an existing REST API, including authorisation with a separate API key for each operation.

  • Understanding a component: supplying an Alpha Anywhere UX component saved in JSON format and asking AI to explain its behaviour and identify possible bugs.

  • Checking design consistency: using ChatGPT’s agent capabilities to navigate a web application and review its screens.

These are useful starting points for anyone maintaining or developing an Alpha application. AI can help you investigate unfamiliar code, explore an idea and spot things that deserve closer attention. Developer review and testing remain essential.

At Start Software, that work builds on experience with Alpha Anywhere stretching back to 2011. We develop and support business applications worldwide, working across Alpha Anywhere, Alpha TransForm and Alpha Cloud.

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